Talent. It does have a true definition; a special natural ability or aptitude: a capacity for achievement or success... blah blah blah, for some reason that definition, over the last twenty or thirty years or so, has begun to be fogged out. Specifically, this is true with music. I myself feel passionately about music, I'm not the sort of person who can sit in a room and just be content listening to anything, I am however, the type of person who examines the lyrics, the instruments, the singing. I put an emphasis on those last three words because I feel like today, in the 21st century, even late in the 20th century musicians have slowly begun to lack the ability to make music that even remotely displays that they have talent. Music now lacks depth, it has no meaning or emotion, music just isn't music, there are few to no instruments in any one new song that people are listening to and you no longer need to be talented at all, you only need to look good and know how to work with electronics.
I would first like to touch on my point about depth. What is depth in music? What exactly do I mean by that? It's something quite simple that everybody knows. You know when you are reading a book, or to stay on the theme of music, are listening to a good ol' country music song and you realize that the words your seeing/ hearing actually tell a story? You notice that they have true meaning and are geared toward something like love, or life, or a specific person. That's what I'm talking about; depth is when an artist is talented enough to put together a story with their lyrics, and they're able to teach something, or convey a mood or emotion to the people who listen to them. I respect musicians who know how to do this because there is oh so many that have no clue, who throw together goobly gop that just rhymes and then somehow manage to become famous and make millions of dollars over nothing... To give you guys an idea, this is a line from Blue Rodeo's song Flying, "If the world keeps spinning round it will be alright, You said if you were on your own, you could really fly, And while you're up there, turn around and touch the sky, I guess, the point of getting out, is never saying goodbye". Then, there is songs like Rihanna's, Diamonds, "Shine bright like a diamond, Shine bright like a diamond, Shine bright like a diamond, We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky". Can you see the difference in depth now? Yes, they're different genres, but still, even originality, I'm pretty sure Rihanna completely stole her lyrics from a song my mum used to sing to me before bed.
Anyway, moving on. How can you call a song "music" if it's lacking instruments? The key ingredient to all great music. When music was created some bajillion years ago, cavemen time, do you think they were singing? No, they didn't speak, they were banging things on rocks and rattling leaves, etc. they were making sounds with not their voices, but objects. Skip forward a few thousand years, to medieval and renaissance times, still, not much singing, but lots more instruments, they now had pianos and violins, some of the most beautiful instruments of all time, the musicians like Bach and Beethoven were truly phenomenal, they were artists who knew exactly how to express emotion through sounds. Then came guitars, drums, trumpets, flutes, banjos, mandolins, hundreds of other things... All very unique in sound, all requiring artists to make them work, and yet although there are thousands of instruments, and lots of people who are musically inclined, how do the ones that become famous, that make it big, not have to know how to play instruments? How do those "pop" and "rap" people become famous when they can't perform basic tasks that every musician should know how to do? It's mind boggling to think about, and I wish it weren't this way at all.
The very last, but not least, and probably the most important part of my argument, why can't singers, sing? Does that make any sense to you guys? The word sing is literally in their title, yet they can't do it to save their lives. This one point specifically was brought to my attention by one of my good friends who also feels strongly about this topic. We both agree that now, a musician doesn't need to know how to sing, they need to look "good", and they need to know how to find people who will work with them that know how to use electronics. Typically, all of the new music is autotuned, you can barely understand a word that the artist is saying because their voices are made to sound so fast and there isn't one section that doesn't include a beep or a boop, every sound is electronic, practically everything is done on the computer. I just can not grasp why they would want to become famous this way, I guess it's probably because most people these days care more about money than anything else, it controls them to do what they do, as long as they're making millions on something that sounds like it's from the Alvin and the Chipmunks album then they will be content.
Music has been around for many years now, it started out an art, something truly unique and beautiful, if you were a musician you could sing, you could put emotion into your work, you knew how to play instruments; it's now a time where anything counts, no talent, nothing. I wish more people were able to listen to music, not just hear it, so they could see past the inappropriate outfits, the random words and the people, not singers, standing on the stages. I want music to be what it used to be. An art.
Hey, if you agree with me on this, you may just get a laugh out of reading some of these comments... Check out the link below.
I would first like to touch on my point about depth. What is depth in music? What exactly do I mean by that? It's something quite simple that everybody knows. You know when you are reading a book, or to stay on the theme of music, are listening to a good ol' country music song and you realize that the words your seeing/ hearing actually tell a story? You notice that they have true meaning and are geared toward something like love, or life, or a specific person. That's what I'm talking about; depth is when an artist is talented enough to put together a story with their lyrics, and they're able to teach something, or convey a mood or emotion to the people who listen to them. I respect musicians who know how to do this because there is oh so many that have no clue, who throw together goobly gop that just rhymes and then somehow manage to become famous and make millions of dollars over nothing... To give you guys an idea, this is a line from Blue Rodeo's song Flying, "If the world keeps spinning round it will be alright, You said if you were on your own, you could really fly, And while you're up there, turn around and touch the sky, I guess, the point of getting out, is never saying goodbye". Then, there is songs like Rihanna's, Diamonds, "Shine bright like a diamond, Shine bright like a diamond, Shine bright like a diamond, We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky". Can you see the difference in depth now? Yes, they're different genres, but still, even originality, I'm pretty sure Rihanna completely stole her lyrics from a song my mum used to sing to me before bed.
Anyway, moving on. How can you call a song "music" if it's lacking instruments? The key ingredient to all great music. When music was created some bajillion years ago, cavemen time, do you think they were singing? No, they didn't speak, they were banging things on rocks and rattling leaves, etc. they were making sounds with not their voices, but objects. Skip forward a few thousand years, to medieval and renaissance times, still, not much singing, but lots more instruments, they now had pianos and violins, some of the most beautiful instruments of all time, the musicians like Bach and Beethoven were truly phenomenal, they were artists who knew exactly how to express emotion through sounds. Then came guitars, drums, trumpets, flutes, banjos, mandolins, hundreds of other things... All very unique in sound, all requiring artists to make them work, and yet although there are thousands of instruments, and lots of people who are musically inclined, how do the ones that become famous, that make it big, not have to know how to play instruments? How do those "pop" and "rap" people become famous when they can't perform basic tasks that every musician should know how to do? It's mind boggling to think about, and I wish it weren't this way at all.
The very last, but not least, and probably the most important part of my argument, why can't singers, sing? Does that make any sense to you guys? The word sing is literally in their title, yet they can't do it to save their lives. This one point specifically was brought to my attention by one of my good friends who also feels strongly about this topic. We both agree that now, a musician doesn't need to know how to sing, they need to look "good", and they need to know how to find people who will work with them that know how to use electronics. Typically, all of the new music is autotuned, you can barely understand a word that the artist is saying because their voices are made to sound so fast and there isn't one section that doesn't include a beep or a boop, every sound is electronic, practically everything is done on the computer. I just can not grasp why they would want to become famous this way, I guess it's probably because most people these days care more about money than anything else, it controls them to do what they do, as long as they're making millions on something that sounds like it's from the Alvin and the Chipmunks album then they will be content.
Music has been around for many years now, it started out an art, something truly unique and beautiful, if you were a musician you could sing, you could put emotion into your work, you knew how to play instruments; it's now a time where anything counts, no talent, nothing. I wish more people were able to listen to music, not just hear it, so they could see past the inappropriate outfits, the random words and the people, not singers, standing on the stages. I want music to be what it used to be. An art.
Hey, if you agree with me on this, you may just get a laugh out of reading some of these comments... Check out the link below.
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